


Photo Booth

by nagoyadelay



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Character Study, Cute, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, It's really about how Yuuri relates to other people though, M/M, Other, Photo booths are really great!, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 17:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10667658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagoyadelay/pseuds/nagoyadelay
Summary: Five times Yuuri Katsuki has his picture taken in a photo booth with someone, and one time he doesn’t.





	Photo Booth

**Author's Note:**

> cleaned up on May 9th, 2017 (fixed the wonky formatting, spelling errors, changed a few sentences to make the characterization in the 2nd and 4th sections better)

The first time Yuuri remembers seeing a photo booth is at the train station in Fukuoka when he is six years old.

It’s small and rectangular, with a short orange curtain and a seat built for approximately one and a half adults. Mari Katsuki sees it first. Her eyes light up with excitement. Their mother digs a pair of 100-yen coins out of her coin purse and puts them into Mari’s outstretched palm.

Mari pulls back the curtain to get into the booth and is about to close it when Hiroko says, “Yuuri, too.” Mari pouts, because she wanted a picture by herself for once. Still, she takes Yuuri’s hand and shuts the curtain behind them.

When she inserts the coins into the coin slot, the machine beeps appreciatively. They position themselves on the stool, Yuuri mostly in Mari’s lap. Mari presses the start button. There’s a large X on the wall opposite of where they are facing, surrounded by fluorescent lights. “Look at the X,” Mari says. A buzzer sounds and all of a sudden the brightest light Yuuri has ever seen is directly in his eyes and there’s a _click._

And Yuuri starts to cry, because the lights are too bright, the sound too loud.

As they wait for the pictures to develop, Yuuri holds his ear up to the machine to hear the hum of its internal movements. It’s warm against his face.

The photo strip slides out of the machine and Yuuri is surprised to see that it’s black-and-white. One picture of Yuuri being startled while Mari smiles; two pictures of Yuuri crying while Mari smiles; one picture of Yuuri wiping his eyes while his sister looks on, annoyed.

Mari asks Hiroko for more coins, and she and Yuuri take another set of photos that turn out much more normal.

Hiroko keeps both sets.

\---

The second time Yuuri gets his picture taken in a photo booth, he’s with Yuuko in a shopping mall. She insisted they come here because she wants to buy new gloves, and Yuuri can't say no to her. Chances to be with Yuuko without Takashi hanging around are becoming more and more rare, and Yuuri doesn't really have any other friends. He is thirteen years old.

Yuuko spots it first; she shrieks and grabs Yuuri by the hand. “Let's take pictures,” she says, pulling him toward the machine. His face flushes at the contact. His hands start to sweat and he hopes she doesn’t notice.

This photo booth is black and white with a black curtain. Yuuri pulls two 100-yen coins out of his pocket before he notices that this time the price has been upped to 350 yen. Yuuko hands him the additional change.

Yuuri climbs in first and sits on the very edge of the stool, scooting even further to the right once Yuuko climbs in so that he’s not too close.   She shuts the curtain and he notices that this booth has an electronic screen inside so that you can see yourself in the cameras. Yuuri is suddenly incredibly aware of how he looks for the first time in his life. He takes off his glasses and pushes his hair back out of his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Yuuko laughs at him. “Put it back!” He pushes the hair back into place, but leaves his glasses off.    
  
He inserts the coins into the machine and the machine buzzes to life. An electronic voice calls out instructions to them as they pose. They take a smiling picture first, a scary picture second; their faces look so ridiculous in the screen for the scary picture that they burst out laughing, laughing so hard that they don’t do any more poses.

After they’re finished, Yuuko asks, “Would you mind if I took another set by myself? I want to give them to-“ She looks at the ground, blushing.

Yuuri nods and pulls back the curtain to exit. He doesn’t like the way he feels right now; suddenly he’s all pinched shoulders and nervous stomach. Yuuko exits just as the machine ejects their photo strip and it’s in color this time, and Yuuri is stunned to see what his face looks like when he laughs. He and Yuuko dissect their looks in the pictures while they wait for her second set to develop.

Years later, Yuuko finds the first photo strip tucked away in a forgotten teenage notebook. She puts it on the bulletin board at Ice Castle Hasetsu.

 --- 

The third time Yuuri gets his picture taken in a photo booth is in an arcade in Detroit. Yuuri has just bested Phichit in air hockey, three games to two. Phichit is younger than him, and new to America, but already adapting way better than Yuuri did. Yuuri marvels at how outgoing Phichit is sometimes, how he could do something like spontaneously invite Yuuri to an arcade without making it into a big _thing_ in his head.

Yuuri spots the booth in an isolated corner and stops to examine it; he knew they weren’t an exclusively Japanese idea, but he doesn’t remember seeing many in America. They seem to be regarded here as a relic of another time. He is twenty-one years old.

Phichit, consummate life-documentarian that he is, freaks out upon seeing it.   “Yuuri, we _have_ to. We _have_ to.” Phichit says.

This photo booth is in a bit of a state of disrepair. The black curtain is ripped and there’s no screen, not even an X on the wall to tell you where to look.   Yuuri looks for an “out of order” sign that it seems like this machine should definitely have, but there isn’t one.

It only has a tiny stool, much tinier than the one Yuuri remembers sitting on as a youth. “You sit, and I’ll kind of… hover stand around you,” Phichit says as he opens the curtain.   The cost of this booth is three dollars.  He and Phichit pool the rest of their arcade quarters and feed them into the coin slot, one by one. The photo booth sputters to life once it gets that twelfth coin.

“First picture, regular,” Phichit instructs. Yuuri puts the most regular smile on his face that he can muster as the camera flashes.

“Okay, now kind of crazy.” Yuuri opens both his mouth and eyes as wide as he possibly can, puts his hand on Phichit’s forehead like a claw.

“Now cute.” Yuuri doesn’t understand how to be cute. He puts up a peace sign but the camera flashes before he can figure out what to do with his face.

“Last one, big smile.” Yuuri forces the biggest smile onto his mouth, causing his eyes to flutter close when the picture is taken.

Phichit rushes off to get more change for games while Yuuri waits for the strip to appear. It prints in black and white and has a small exposure line running through the right side from the sort-of-broken machine. Yuuri frowns as he studies the pictures. He thinks he looks terrible in all of them. He intends to keep this one so no one else sees it, but Phichit snatches it out of his hand before he can pocket it. “This is amazing!” he shouts.

When they both make the Grand Prix final a few years later, Phichit takes a picture of his and Yuuri’s photo strip and shares it on Instagram as a #tbt. It’s his most-liked post to date.

\-- 

The fourth time Yuuri gets his picture taken in a photo booth, he and Victor have just arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport for the Cup of China. Yuuri is exhausted from traveling and sure that he looks terrible. He can’t stop thinking about Victor falling asleep on his shoulder.

“Yuuri, look!” Victor stops in the middle of the airport, causing other passengers to have to scramble around them. “A photo booth!”

Yuuri is _so_ not in the mood, but when he sees the excited look on Victor’s face he doesn’t have it in him to say no.

The booth is white and big and modern, with plenty of space for three or four people to sit. Yuuri enters the booth first and Victor follows, sitting so close that their thighs are touching. 

“I… I don’t have any Yuan,” Yuuri says to Victor. He thinks about relaxing into Victor’s closeness but can’t bring himself to do it just yet. He sits up, stays rigid.  But he doesn't move away.

Victor gives the interior of the machine a once-over. “I think it has a credit card slot.” Victor gets his wallet out of his pocket and retrieves a black card, inserting it into what they think is a place where the credit card should go.

The machine begins to shout at them in Mandarin. Victor looks at Yuuri in desperate confusion.  
  
Yuuri examines the touch screen in front of them. “If we just keep hitting that right arrow button it will probably take pictures eventually.”

It takes six right arrow presses for the touch screen to turn from unreadable characters to a reflection of themselves. Yuuri pushes his glasses up on his nose, runs a finger through his hair. Victor scoots over and is now practically sitting on top of him. “We need to be close so that neither of us get cut off in the photo,” he says. Yuuri feels like he’s on fire.  But he doesn't move away.

A red light begins to blink in a rhythm. “That probably means pictures,” Yuuri guesses. Victor puts an arm around Yuuri and smiles, looking directly at the camera. Yuuri smiles nervously. The red light turns green and there’s a loud electronic shutter sound and a camera flash. 

Victor tries to make a scary face and Yuuri tries to emulate, but seeing Victor’s weak attempt makes him start laughing as the camera flashes again.

Victor puts both of his arms around Yuuri’s neck as Yuuri is still laughing. Yuuri is still facing forward, but Victor isn’t even bothering to look at the camera. The camera flashes again.

Victor moves his face closer to Yuuri’s, but now he’s ever so slightly looking forward, giving the camera a possessive glare. Yuuri can feel Victor’s breath in his ear. Yuuri is still looking in front of him, but his own expression is a mix of confusion and surprise and something else that he can't quite name. The camera flashes again.

Yuuri only breaks from Victor's touch when the machine starts talking to them in Mandarin again. He keeps pressing the right arrow button as fast as he possibly can until he gets to a page that he thinks might mean that their photos are printing. Victor steps out of the booth and Yuuri follows.

The photos print faster than any other booth that Yuuri’s ever been in, and this time there are two copies. Yuuri takes one and hands the other to Victor, who has the softest look on his face that Yuuri’s seen from him. “These are so cute,” Victor says, smiling at Yuuri.

Yuuri smiles back.

After Victor kisses him at Cup of China, Yuuri puts the photo strip in a frame when they get back to Hasetsu. He puts it on his nightstand so that he’s guaranteed to see it at least twice a day.

\---

The fifth time Yuuri gets his picture taken in a photo booth, Victor has a cold. Yuuri needs to run to the pharmacy to get him some medicine, but he has just moved to St. Petersburg and finds it a little overwhelming. The only Russian words he knows are endearments and curses, and that’s hardly enough to pick out cough syrup. He asks Yuri to go with him and Yuri agrees with minimal fuss.

“I could have just picked some up and brought it to you,” Yuri says. “Then you wouldn’t have to leave your old sick baby.”

“I know, but I want to know where the pharmacy is, and what they have beyond cold medicine. Just in case.”

He and Yuri are walking to the pharmacy when Yuuri spots a photo booth in a storefront window. He stops to give it a closer look; it’s outdated, but well cared for. It appears to be in a vintage store.

Yuri doubles back about twenty feet. He didn’t realize that Yuuri had stopped. “I love these,” Yuuri says. “Will you take a picture with me? I don’t think a few extra minutes will kill Victor.”  
  
“Ugh, I guess so,” Yuri replies. He yanks the door of the store open and heads inside.

The booth has a custom curtain made in vintage fabric. Yuuri pushes it back; this booth has a bench built for two people instead of a stool. He slides to the right so that Yuri can sit.

“Can you put the money in?” Yuuri asks, dumping a handful of coins into Yuri’s palm. He can’t read how much it costs in rubles. Yuri grumbles, putting the necessary coins in and handing Yuuri the rest.

“No stupid faces,” Yuri warns. Yuuri nods and looks at the X on the opposite wall.

When the strip develops it’s four near-identical photos; Yuuri smiling, Yuri scowling. Yuri uses his phone to take a photo of the strip before handing the pictures to Yuuri. “Keep it, Katsudon. Memorize the face that’s going to beat you for the next few years.”

The photo Yuri takes of the photo strip is his phone wallpaper for the next eighteen months.

\---

Yuuri doesn’t care much about the details of wedding planning. He’s happy to leave things like centerpieces and linens and invitations mostly to Victor, who cares deeply about them, while Yuuri oversees the budget to make sure they’re staying within cost.   But when Victor asks him if there’s anything he’d like to have at the reception, Yuuri can only think of one thing.

“I’d like there to be a photo booth. One with the little strips so people can take their pictures home with them.”  
  
Victor’s eyes light up and he smiles and says, “Yuuri, that’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard!” Victor does some research and rents a large, modern booth that saves photos electronically but also prints them as strips.  
  
While he and Victor are dancing at their wedding reception, about two hours in, he sees a crowd of people headed toward the booth – Mari, Yuuko, Takashi, Phichit, Yuri, his parents and Minako-sensei. Mari is even holding Makkachin.

He watches them all attempt to pile into the booth together and they’re all laughing, even Yuri, and suddenly there’s a tear running down the side of Yuuri's face; he’s so overwhelmed with gratitude that he knows all of these wonderful people.

Victor looks at Yuuri, concerned. “Yuuri, are you okay?”  
  
Yuuri smiles and kisses Victor on the cheek. “Never better.” Victor wipes Yuuri’s face with the back of his tuxedo sleeve.

It’s the best day of Yuuri’s life.

\--- 

Phichit makes sure that Yuuri ends up with a copy of the group photo strip at the end of the night. It’s messy and there are a few tops-of-heads that are cut off, but everyone looks so happy, so celebratory that Yuuri almost can’t even bear to look at it; it's overwhelming and makes him feel like his heart is going to burst.

When he and Victor return to St. Petersburg after their honeymoon, Yuuri frames the strip and puts it on his nightstand next to the old photo strip of himself and Victor. He wants to make sure that he remembers all of this, always.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3 tell me your best photobooth stories at [nagoyadelay.](https://nagoyadelay.tumblr.com/)


End file.
